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<v ->Summer has arrived</v>

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and with phase two of Corona virus openings upon us here.

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Some people were hitting the beach or the local playground

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whatever the case may be, but more people outside.

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And to talk about how we know how safe we are

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while being outside we have acting

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under Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security,

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Science and Technology Directorate Bill Bryan with us.

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Bill, thank you for taking a little time to join us today.

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<v ->Well, hey, thanks for having me on your show</v>

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and good morning to all the great people of New Orleans.

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<v ->Right, so you guys have come up with a calculator</v>

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to help us know how much of the virus is around

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both indoors on surfaces and outside.

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Tell me about that.

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<v ->Sure, the decay calculator that we came up with</v>

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at our lab and under our COVID 19 studies

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is an incredible tool.

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It's a tool that can be used by the citizens

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in disinfecting your own home.

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It can also be used by business owners and operators

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and we actually have two of them.

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One of them is a calculator for surface decay

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and the other is a calculation for aerosol decay.

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So the surface decay calculator is very simple.

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You plug in the relative humidity as well as the temperature

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and it'll calculate the half-life of the virus.

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Now that's very important because the half-life

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of the virus, frankly means that if a thousand elements

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of the virus is deposited on the surface,

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the half-life means that in that certain period of time,

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that the calculator will tell you,

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half that will be decayed in that period of time.

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The aerosol one is a little bit different.

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It does relative humidity, it does temperature

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but it also does UV index, because the sunlight

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has a huge impact on decaying the virus.

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So both calculators are available at our website

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<v ->Good stuff there.</v>

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What should we know about the weather here

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in Southeast Louisiana and Southern Mississippi

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as it relates to the virus?

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<v ->Well, first let me start off by saying that,</v>

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the environment in New Orleans

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is really the perfect environment outside

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for a rapid decay of the virus.

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The virus does not like hot, humid, sunny conditions.

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And certainly we're entering into that season now,

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the summer is approaching.

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It's on us right now as we speak.

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And so the conditions that we're facing right now

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are really good for us to get a handle

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on the spread of the virus,

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the transmission of the virus.

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And so our role in this has really just been a small piece

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of the bigger puzzle.

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If you look at the transmission

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or the rate of transmission of the virus,

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it's like a chain and we've been able to identify

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some weak links in that chain, right?

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It doesn't like humidity.

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It doesn't like heat,

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and it definitely doesn't like sunlight.

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<v ->All right Bill. Thank you so much.</v>

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That is acting

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under Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security,

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Science and Technology, Directorate Bill Bryan.

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And we'll have all the information that he talked about.

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Plus a link to that calculator on wgno.com.